I used a bluetooth CAT control with my Yaesu FT817 for quite awhile ($14 on ebay) and was generally happy with it. There is a small lag but one can get used to it. The advantage is no wires between a laptop and transceiver. Also, I could use my HP Stream tablet with it (Win 8) this way.

Given this success, I entertained an idea of making a digital (soundcard) interface wireless too. As the connection would be simplex and mono (1 channel), a regular bluetooth phone headset seemed up to the job.

I happened to have one laying around without much use so the first step was to prove the concept which was very easy. Once paired with the laptop / tablet, the headset became available as a soundcard in HRD DM780 settings. I tried sending some RTTY to it and it worked. I guess now I understand what Alexander Graham Bell felt like when his first phone worked (hi hi).

However, receiving (listening) from the headset did not work. After some googling, I found a hint – set bluetooth headset soundcard as a Defaultdevice in the Control Panel -> Sound -> Recording Devices settings. That helped right away so the next step was wiring the headset to the transceiver.

After disassembling the headset, I removed existing battery, speaker and mic and soldered new thin wires to the connecting pads.

For TX (audio out) – I added a 1:25 resistive divider to decrease the output voltage off the speaker wires and to match the voltage requirements of Yaesu; and soldered the speakers wires to it. For RX (audio in), I needed to match Yaesu output to the headset mic. After some experimentation, a combination of two SMD capacitors to both pins and a small resistor in series to avoid overloading and to provide DC isolation finally worked.

Finally, I added a new bigger OEM Li-Ion battery (insulated with black tape) and a USB charger PCB with a switch to improve on portable operation time of the headset.

The headset, battery, charger, and the existing CAT BT control PCB all managed to fit into a small plastic enclosure. Some hot glue helped to secure them in place.

The boards sit on top of the battery / charger; to isolate the layer I cut a small sheet off a thick polyethylene water jug.

The enclosure is secured with two small strips of a velcro tape. The battery can be charged via a USB connector; the switch turns on/off the bluetooth headset.

The PTT is controlled by the software via the CAT control. Now to chase DX with WSJT QRP mode!